, 1887-11-12
A SAILORS YARN.

In 1865 l was one of the crew of the
American bark Henry Castle. which
made a voyage to the Java Sea and
called at several of the larger islands.
One day, while the ship was lying in the
outer harbor of Samarang, Island of
Java, two of us pulled the captain ashore
in the gig. We landed him on a rocky
point, from whence he took a short cut
across to the town, and were ordered to
wait there until his return. My slip
mate, whose name was Thurber,
stretched out for a nap as soon as the
captain had gone, while L got out on the
point to ave a look around. The water
was pretty deep alongside the boat, and
by and by, full of a sailors deviltry, L
picked up a large rock and heaved it
into the water with a great splash. 1
calculated on seeing Thurber start up in
alarm, but he only laughed at my effort.
Then l set out to wet him with a splash,
and flung five or six other rocks as large
as l could handle. l was hunting for
yet another, and had my back to the
boat and the water, when something
brushed past my head. 1 made a leap
aside and wheeled around. In the two
ctSOiido tiiuo OSSuPlCo L dCSluGu lldb
Thurber had thrown some missile at me,
and l laughed as 1 turned about.
The laugh, however, died away in a
shout of terror. An octopus with a body
as large as a beer keg had risen to the
surface and partly pulled itself on the
rocks, and its half dozen terrible arms
were flying about like SO many whip
lashes. 1t had flung one of them at me
and missed its aim. Although l was now
thirty feet away, it continued to fling
three or four feelers in my direction. but
none of them could reach within fifteen
feet. The two longest arms were from fif-
teen to eighteen feet long, and the shorter
ones from eight to ten.
If l could nave restrained myself for a
few minutes the monster would no doubt
AVE sunk beneath the waters again, but
the awful stare of its great eyes, the
sight of the terrible beak, the squirming
of those horrible feelers as they tried in
vain to touch me, made me cry out
loudly. L might have known hat 1
could make no Roadway against the
monster with the means at hand, but,
acting on the impulse of the moment, 1
picked up a good sized rock and flung it
with certain aim at the pulpish body. 1t
was at this moment that Thurber rose
up in the boat to see what was going on.
The creature didn't see him at first, be-
ing entirely occupied in trying to get ME
into its clutches. / believe Thurber could
ave pushed the boat off and hoated
away in safety, but he also acted on the
first impulse. Lifting up one of the
heavy oars he dealt the octopus a heavy
blow, nc doubt inflicting severe injury.
He was raising the oar for a second blow,
when [ saw three or four feelers whip
through the air at once and faSten to
him, while the creature emitted a kissing
sound like the blowing off of steam. The
man uttered a scream Of fright and ter
ror as The feelers caught him, and sank
down in the boat and chung to a thwart
with a clutch of despair.
Mind you, everything had taken place
in a moment, and l wasn't to be blamed
for not knowing exactly what to do.
However, l perhaps accomplished all
that could have been lone under the cir
cumstance. l hurled rock after rock at
the creature, striking it fairly several
times, but it refused to let go of Thur
Der. 1t kept two of the feelers ready for
me, and once, when in my excitement
and anxiety l approached too near, one
of the feelers came so close to catching
me that it struck my foot. The screams
of my poor shipmate were terrible to
hear, and they alarmed the crews of
several vessels half a mile away. Two
boats put off for us, but they had not
passed over half the distance when the
octopus put forth his strength and
jerked Thurber from his hold and
overheard. The water at that point was
twenty feet deep, and it was apparent
that there was a sort of cave or recess in
ohe rocks, which was the home of the
creature, We rolled more rocks down,
got a long pole and thrust it down, and
lfter an hours work got hold of the sail
1r's body and brought it to land. There
was a terrible cash in his back, made, no
loubt, by the beak of the octopus, and
wherever the cups of the feelers had
taken hold there were livid spots and
blisters, but neither the blood had been
sucked out nor any of the flesh eaten. l
do not think any effort of ours scared the
creature into giving up the dead. 1t had
retained its hold until certain that life
had departed, and had, perhaps, chung to
it the longer for our attempts. The ma
tives said that my heaving the stones into
the water had annoyed the octopus and
brought him up for a fight, and that but
for my action we should have seen moth
ing of him.
For over four years l was mate and
master of a small schooner plying be-
tween the Spice islands and Singapore, in
the interest of an American trader. /
do not think / made a single trip without
seeing from one to a dozen of the horrible
devil fish. One day in the Branda sea
it fell dead calm, and a current drifted
us close in upon an island to the north of
the Lesser Timor. We let go the anchor
in a little bay, and when the schooner
brought up she vas in twelve feet of
water and within Fifty feet of the beach.